‘Yeah. The one who told the police what she saw that day.’

‘Bella Fisher.’

‘Yep – the bitch’s daughter.’

‘She gave the description of your truck, which was easily recognisable to everyone around here, and told the police she’d seen Jonie get into it and you drive away. Out of the village.’

‘That’s what she said, yes. But the girl lied, Lizzie. She had to have done.’

‘But they found DNA evidence in your truck?’

‘Oh, you mean the planted evidence? Yes, well. What they found was a piece of clothing, a dress, with blood on it. They may as well have set the dogs on me there and then. No one in the village even waited to find out whose it was. And it just so happened that it was Eliza’s—your dress. It was my blood. But instead of them thinking “Oh, we were wrong”, that piece of so-called evidence seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. If I could hurt you, I could hurt Jonie Hayes. They thought I’d taken her to replace my daughter. To replace you. To do to her what they always thought I did to you. But I never touched you. As I say, the blood was mine. You hit out at me several times. You acted so oddly, you actually scared me. I put it down to the shock of losing your mother. It was more than that, but I didn’t have the chance to find out. Because that fucking bitch manipulated you into telling social that I did stuff to you. Hideous stuff. Unthinkable. It destroyed me.’

‘Yes, I know about that now. Muriel confessed.’

‘It wasn’t me though. I wasn’t the one abusing you.’

Lizzie frowned. ‘Meaning what? You think I was abused?’

‘Oh, yes. I know it.’

‘Who? Who did it? Do you know?’

‘I have my suspicion – I’ll get to that later. But, like everything else in that fucked-up place, the villagers hid it. They looked after their own. I was the obvious culprit. They didn’t bother looking elsewhere. I was set up for that, then they pinned Jonie on me, too. On the outsider who had nothing left to lose.’

‘How, though? I get you’d built a bit of a reputation, which was then reinforced with me being taken away, but to be charged with abduction and murder? I don’t understand how anyone could’ve achieved it.’

‘A lot was circumstantial. Even the dress – which they later found out was yours – and the blood, which was mine, wouldn’t have held up in court. But a little girl’s witness statement to the police, one detailing my vehicle and saying how I’d chased her and her friend Jonie, how I’d then grabbed Jonie and bundled her into the truck – well, they listened to that, and they believed it. Because I didn’t have an alibi – or rather no one would admit to seeing me anywhere else at that specific time – this was deemed the key evidence. And when the police searched the bungalow … that’s when they found it.’